Ashley slowly stood from the leafy ground and sat back on the fallen tree trunk—though this time, she left plenty of space between herself and Deon.

“Okay…If I remember right, this girl said her name was Pang,” she started. “Does that sound right?”

“Yes,” confirmed Skrili. “She has something of mine.”

“I believe that…” Miranda chimed in softly, as the cloud of sorrow continued to rain over her and her broken guitar. “She has a few things of ours now, too…”

“And there was that weird emo guy,” added Ashley.

“‘Weird?’ I thought he was cute,” Miranda said in a less sob-inflicted tone than before.

“So did I,” Ashley agreed grimly, “until he totally paralyzed me.”

“‘Emo guy?” Skrili wondered.

“Pang’s teammate,” Miranda clarified. “I think his name was…Phillip. You didn’t also meet him?”

Skrili shook her head. “I knew Pang when she had a different teammate.”

While massaging her temples from the headache Skrili inflicted at the end of the fight, Ashley leaned forward in thought.

“So I think the best way to give you guys an idea of what you’re getting yourselves into, and where those two are probably headed, would be to start from the beginning,” she said.

Skrili nodded in agreement. Deon, who had been sitting in embarrassment and silence, was beginning to notice that the three girls had pretty much ceased acknowledging him since the end of the fight.

It’s like I’m not even here anymore, he thought whiningly. Girls never ignored me like this back home…

“Alright; I’ll try to remember all the details for you,” Ashley told Skrili. “Miranda, feel free to chime in with anything. So we had just come from a defeat the night before, after leaving Normal Country…”

~

(One day earlier...)

Miranda sighed as she and Ashley traveled down a long, straight path in No Man’s Land. It was slightly downhill and encompassed in tall maple, orange-bearing trees. The early afternoon sunlight shone down in random patches through the branches high above them.

“Why so depressed?” Ashley asked her friend.

“We lost the first fight of our tour,” answered Miranda. “You know what happens whenever we lose the first fight.”

“This tour will be different…just wait,” Ashley insured, only half-convinced by her own words.

That previous night, Ashley and Miranda faced an older and more experienced team and—though they held their own for a while—couldn’t come out on top. Ever since the duo started traveling fulltime as a consciousnesses team two years ago, they tended to fulfill a rather bothersome pattern: whenever they lost the first fight of a tour through No Man’s Land, they would face a drought of wins for the remaining fights.

“We’ll see,” Miranda said with a shrug.

“Sometimes you just have to think positive, you know?” Ashley told her, nudging her with her shoulder.

“And sometimes you just have to drown in self-pity,” came Miranda’s dismal response.

The two girls exchanged glances and burst into laughter. As friends, the vibes each of them gave off were opposite, but their contrasting personalities seemed to always complement each other—which was likely the reason they stuck together. If it weren’t for each other, they doubted either would continue this crazy lifestyle.

They continued to walk down the path, conversing about anything that took their minds off of the night before. After a few minutes passed, Ashley spotted two young individuals off to the side of the path a small distance away—a boy and a girl. “Hey look,” she pointed out to Miranda.

Miranda noticed the pair. “Ashley, you can’t want to fight already,” she complained. “We lost just yesterday…and we haven’t even done any practicing today.”

“It can’t hurt to try,” Ashley responded.

“Actually it can; it can hurt our bodies and our wallets,” argued Miranda, but she knew Ashley already had her mind made up. “Can we at least eat lunch first?”

Ashley laughed. “Quit making excuses. We’ll be fine, Miranda.”

Miranda sighed and crossed her arms as they gradually approached the two teenagers. The boy was standing off to the side silently behind the girl, as if awaiting her orders. He was quite tall, unusually thin, and wore only black and white: a black hooded jacket with a striped t-shirt underneath, tight black jeans, and white shoes so thin they were practically slippers. His skin also matched the attire as he was particularly pale, and his black hair spiked out in all directions, with the front brushed down dramatically to conceal his eyes. A small frown and some unshaven chin hair were the only visible features of his face.

The girl sat in front of him, leaning casually against a tree trunk. She seemed completely calm, chewing on a long blade of grass with her arms back behind her head. Something about her face was unnerving…it was uncomfortably confident. She had sharp features and large gold eyes that looked around as if everything she saw was her own creation. Her straight hair was bright red and came down to her shoulders, and she wore a sleeveless, blood-red tank top featuring a jagged black symbol. The girl’s shoes were similar to the boy’s, but gray.

Next to her lay two nearly identical bags: one the same color as her shirt, and the other dark blue.

Even Ashley began to sense the peculiarity of the girl’s demeanor as they approached the duo, but it wasn’t enough to scare her away. She barely looks old enough to even be out here, Ashley thought.

Neither the boy nor girl seemed to acknowledge her or Miranda when they walked up to them.

“Uh…hey, guys,” Ashley greeted, feeling awkward and intrusive.

The red-haired girl slowly made eye contact with Ashley while the boy stood unchangingly. “Can we help you?” she asked emotionlessly. Her voice sounded full, and much more mature than Ashley and Miranda expected.

“Yeah…um—my name’s Ashley and this is Miranda. We were wondering if you guys would like to have a fight.”

Still chewing on the long piece of grass that bobbed up and down in front of her face, the girl looked Ashley up and down, and sized up Miranda in the same manner. “Hmm…sure, why not,” she said, shrugging lazily. She looked over her shoulder to the boy. “Hey Phillip, we’re fighting these girls.”

Phillip gave a single nod.

“Since we’re doing names, I’m Pang,” the girl said while standing up. At her full height, she didn’t even reach five feet—and standing next to Phillip, she appeared even shorter.

“Are there any good places to fight nearby?” Ashley asked.

“Here’s fine,” Pang said casually.

“Here?” repeated Miranda. “In the middle of a path?”

“Sure,” Pang ensured. “This shouldn’t take too long. We probably won’t get in anyone’s way.”

Miranda and Ashley exchanged glances, thinking the same thing: Did she really just say that?

“Uh…alright,” Ashley agreed reluctantly. “How do you guys want to set up the winning pay? Cash or TeamTrack?”

“Oh, we’ll figure that out after…” Pang responded as Phillip looked away.

After Ashley and Miranda put their travel bags down, the two teams walked into the dirt path, creating a distance between each other to discuss strategy. Miranda turned to Ashley with concern in her eyes. “Okay, these guys are super weird,” she whispered. “How should we approach this?”

“We do what we do best,” Ashley told her. “I’ll request matchups. It doesn’t look like they care all too much, so I’ll be able to choose that Phillip guy and use my specialty. From there, we play it by ear—you’re a musician; that part should be easy for you.”

Miranda tried to appreciate Ashley’s pun with a smile. “Okay…let’s get this over with.” She took her guitar out of its case and strapped it around her shoulder. They refaced their opponents, who were already waiting for them silently.

“Are you guys okay with matchups?” Ashley asked.

“Whatever,” was Pang’s bored response.

“Then I’ll start against Phillip and Miranda will—”

“Yeah, got it,” Pang interrupted.

Ashley and Miranda spread apart from each other as far as they could, which was limited due to the fairly thin path they stood on. Phillip and Pang did the same, and the two teams drew closer to each other. Without an official announcement, the fight began.

Which song should I play? Miranda wondered. I just finished the words for ‘Garden Lullaby;’ let’s try that one. She began to play the guitar, staring into Pang’s golden eyes intently. Pang stood still, waiting for something to happen.

Ashley was the first to make a move, as well. So he’s the quiet type. I know just how to handle him, she thought. She placed her hand on her hip and walked slowly towards Phillip with confidence, secretly keeping her guard up. “So let’s see what type of consciousness you are, big guy,” she said, flipping her hair dramatically. She attempted to gaze into his eyes like she usually would, but his bangs covering them made it difficult.

Phillip didn’t move, but his cheeks flushed subtly.

Ashley smirked—she had him right where she wanted. She figured if she could make him feel awkward, it might be easy to take him down without having to finish the hypnosis.

Across from them, Miranda continued to play her song as Pang watched her with crossed arms. Why isn’t she starting to look tired yet? Miranda asked herself. And if this isn’t affecting her, why doesn’t she just come and attack me?

“Still not showing me your powers yet, huh?” Ashley asked Phillip as she neared him. “I’ll show my type if you show yours…” she winked at him.

Phillip continued to stand there, unmoving and blushing.

Finally Ashley stopped a few feet in front of him. That should be enough for now, she decided. “Ok then, here I come!” she warned playfully. Then, with a lightning-speed leap, she launched herself at Phillip knee-first. Her knee was aimed perfectly at his stomach—but then she went through him as if he were a ghost. Ashley landed sloppily on her feet. “Huh?!” she wondered aloud.

Immediately, something smashed into her upper back, sending her toppling to the dirt. Dizzied, she lifted her face from the ground and looked behind her. Phillip was right there, standing tall as before and looking down at her quietly.

A tiny smile appeared on his face.

Meanwhile, Miranda kept playing her guitar uneasily, still seeing no sign of her song’s sleep effect on Pang. The red-haired girl merely stood waiting impatiently.

This is getting nowhere fast, noticed Miranda. She breathed in and began to sing the lyrics. Pang’s eyes widened for a moment upon hearing this, and then something twinkled in her eye as she appeared to figure it out. Great…Miranda thought, preparing herself for an attack…yet still, nothing happened.

Ashley climbed to her feet and hurriedly backed away from Phillip. “That was…a cool move. What’s it called?” she asked him, attempting to keep sounding friendly. The spiking pain in her back made it hard to maintain her flirtatious smile.

Phillip seemed unsettled by her continued kindness as his small smile vanished. Using this moment as an opportunity, Ashley charged at him again. Right as she was about to jump and kick him, an enormous, dark creature appeared out of the left corner of her eye. Frightened, she looked over at it—but nothing was there. Immediately, she felt Phillip’s long arm slam into her head. With a cry of pain, she tumbled to the ground once more.

After taking a few seconds to recover, she raised her head and wiped dirt from her face, watching Phillip loom above her again.

“I get it now,” she said to him. “You’re an Illusionist, aren’t you?”

Phillip nodded once.

Ashley brought herself to her hands and knees and then paused, wincing. “I said I would show you my powers if you showed yours, but I guess both of us were already using them. I’m a Hypnotizer, if you haven’t already noticed.” With an effort, she pushed herself to her feet, dusting off her pants. “But if you haven’t realized what my specialty is yet, I’ll keep that a secret.” She winked at him again and smiled through the pain.

Phillip’s cheeks reddened again, but his composure remained the same as usual.

This might be it for me unless I can figure out something else, realized Ashley. With little other choice, she attacked him again—this time with a swift punch to the chest. As expected, her fist went right through this apparent illusion. Ashley quickly spun around and kicked, predicting that Phillip would be there. He was—but this was also an illusion, and her foot slipped through him. Ashley knew she was in trouble again, and at that moment she was kicked in her mid-back. She let out an involuntary puff of air and fell to her hands and knees.

Frick! I guess the jig’s up…how can I hypnotize him if I can’t figure out which one is him? Ashley thought as she slowly stood up again, knowing the illusions and hard hits would only continue.

Miranda burst open her eyes as her heart skipped a beat. What just happened?! she wondered. She had come to an instrumental part in the song, but had somehow missed her vocal entry into the next verse. She remembered getting lost in the music, but didn’t recall ever closing her eyes.

Now she stood, blinking and strumming the chords to the verse lightly. Across from her, Pang still waited—only now a smile spread across her face. Miranda knew she should be alarmed by this, but for some reason she felt beside herself, watching her actions from the outside. She had no concern as her eyelids drooped down and her head started to bob. Even when she vaguely saw a red figure walk up to her and lift her guitar upward—causing her to stop playing—she remained careless and heavy-eyed.

Then a fist hurled straight into her gut.

Miranda coughed and her eyes shot wide open in shock. The pain came at once as she collapsed to her knees and her guitar fell back to its original position. When her blurry vision cleared, Miranda saw Pang standing right in front of her.

“So that’s your type? Some sort of musical Hypnotizer? How pathetic!” Pang laughed. “I was right—you were no challenged at all.”

Miranda looked up at her, hopeless and confused, as Pang brought her hand back in preparation for a finishing blow. She must be…a Manipulator…Miranda realized in her final moments of thought. Then Pang’s hand came down and met the side of her head, and nothingness followed.

After getting kicked to the ground again, Ashley looked over to see Miranda lying unconscious not too far down the path. Pang turned around to watch her fight against Phillip.

“Oh no,” Ashley uttered to herself. Her heart sank: Miranda was down, and to make matters worse: now Pang could come over and help Phillip.

“You haven’t taken her out yet?” Pang called over to Phillip. “Well make it entertaining for me, at least.”

Wow, this girl’s such a jerk, Ashley thought bitterly while standing up yet again. She had been tricked and knocked down by Phillip numerous times now, but had no urge to give up yet.

Looking at Phillip, she brushed back her now-dusty hair. “You’re making my new outfit all dirty,” she told him wearily, not expecting a response.

Suddenly an arm wrapped around her neck from behind and trapped her in place. The Phillip in front of her vanished, revealing he had once again created an illusion, and was the person behind her. He locked on tightly, but didn’t choke her.

“I don’t want to keep hurting you,” Phillip practically whispered in his low voice. Ashley was stunned to hear him speak. “Don’t worry—this won’t last. And I’m sorry.” She felt Phillip’s hand slide over to the back of her neck and perform a strange twisting and pinching motion. Instantly, her whole body went totally limp. Her eyes closed as she sunk into Phillip’s arms, and though she lost all control over her body, she was still wide awake. She felt Phillip gently lower her to the ground and lay her down carefully.

He…he paralyzed me?! she exclaimed in her thoughts. I can’t move a single muscle!

“Aw, well that was no fun,” Pang complained jokingly. “You could have at least messed her up with some crazy combo…or thrown her into a tree or something.”

Phillip said nothing.

“This other girl was way too easy,” Pang told him. “She tried to put me to sleep with some lullaby song. How stupid. Consciousnesses like her shouldn’t bother fighting.” Ashley heard Pang yawn. “Well, let’s do our thing and get out of here.”

‘Do our thing?’ What’s that supposed to mean? Ashley wondered. She heard Pang’s footsteps move towards the spot Ashley and Miranda had first stopped to talk to them. Then there was the sound of a zipper opening, and Pang started bustling through a bag.

“This girl’s obsessed with her appearance,” Pang noticed. “Half of this bag is nothing but makeup and perfume. She must be an Attraction-Style Hypnotizer—or as I call them: the sluts of consciousness fighting.”

If Ashley could move, she would have jumped right up and tackled Pang to the ground. What’s you’re deal?! she wanted to scream. What is she doing going through my stuff?!

“Oh—here it is,” Pang said, pulling something out of Ashley’s bag. Then she moved over to Miranda’s bag and repeated the same process. “Alright Phillip, let’s get out of here.”

Phillip mumbled a question, but it was too quiet to understand.

“What?”

“We’re—we’re just…going to leave them lying here like this?” he repeated a little louder.

“Sure, who cares?” Pang answered.

~

“…And then they left,” Ashley told Skrili and Deon. “Miranda came to a minute later and she pulled me over to the side of the path. By then I could at least talk, so I told her to check our bags. All of our cash was gone, but luckily everything else was still there. We wanted to chase them, but it took another five or so hours before I could walk again. So to make a long story short: I heard them heading east, towards Fantasy Country.”

“Once Ashley could move again late in the afternoon, we ran through the woods looking for them,” Miranda explained. “We even searched through most of the night, but eventually we had to call it quits. Now we’re heading back home. Without any money—and being 0 and 3 already—we have to end the tour early.”

Miranda and Ashley looked to each other with sadness. Suddenly, they ran to each other and hugged, tears shooting out of their eyes.

“I’M SORRY I MADE YOU FIGHT THOSE MEANIES, RAN-RAN!!!” Ashley cried.

“IT’S OKAY, WE’RE STILL BEST FRIENDS!!!” sobbed Miranda.

“Wow, it sounds like you guys really have it rough,” Deon commented. “It’s no wonder you didn’t want to actually fight me, Ashley—you must be exhausted.”

The girls abruptly stopped hugging and crying. “True…,” began Ashley. “But that was mostly because I knew you’d be easy to fool,” she said. “No offense.”

Deon sulked.

“So Pang’s new teammate is an Illusionist…” Skrili noted.

“Is that a type of Imaginer, like me?” asked Deon.

“Some consider it to be, but they’re technically separate from Imaginers. They can only create illusions in people’s minds,” Skrili told him. “And by the way Miranda, you guessed right: Pang’s a Manipulator—she uses other people’s consciousness abilities against them.”

“So that is what happened…” Miranda realized.

“Well…I hope my little story helped you out a bit,” Ashley said.

“Of course. Now I know what general direction they’re headed in, and I learned about Phillip. Thank you,” Skrili answered. “I would offer you some money to help, but Pang has my bag. That’s why I’m hunting her down.”

“That’s totally fine,” said Ashley with a smile.

Skrili began to walk away, so Deon stood to follow her. “And I’m sorry about your guitar,” she added.

Miranda froze for a moment, and then looked down at her guitar. “Right…I forgot about that…” she said bleakly. The cloud of sorrow began to reform above her.

Then something occurred to Deon. “Hey…I bet I can fix that,” he said. “In Tailpiece, we have this seven-string instrument called the Koz. It looks a lot like your guitar. Back when my mom used to teach me about my powers, she had me make Koz strings as a project. The strings are a little different, but it might work on your guitar,” he proposed.

“Really?” asked Miranda. “If you don’t mind, go for it!”

After Miranda took a minute to remove the old strings from the guitar, Deon prepared his creation, closing his eyes in concentration. Let’s see…there was iron…and bismuth, I think…he recalled.

After remembering all the various elements that were part of the string, and their correct amounts, he mentally combined them and created the first six of the seven strings in his thoughts. They were all a transparent iris color.

When they were as precise as he wanted, Deon opened his eyes and looked at Miranda’s guitar. One by one, he placed the strings in their positions on the guitar, starting with the thickest string on the top to the thinnest on the bottom. The tricky part was imagining them wound around the tuning machines at the top (because the guitar’s pegs were thinner than the Koz’s), but he managed to get it done securely. Soon, the process was complete.

“There you go,” Deon said. “I didn’t try to tune them perfectly because I’m not sure how guitar strings are tuned, but they should work okay. And people will have a hard time breaking those strings: I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a Koz string snapping.”

“Won’t they disappear when you leave or stop thinking about them?” asked Ashley.

Deon was surprised: it seemed people out here were pretty familiar with his powers—or, Imagining, as they called it. Then again, Skrili did say it was the most common type.

“Actually, since I went element-by-element to make it, the strings are totally real,” Deon explained. “They won’t go away at all!”

“Whoa, thank you so much!” Miranda exclaimed. “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Well, you know…it’s what I do,” Deon said cockily. “Way cooler than Illusionists, right?”

Skrili rolled her eyes and started to leave again. “Maybe we’ll meet again someday,” she said to Ashley and Miranda.

They returned her farewell as Deon followed Skrili out of the clearing and back towards the main path. As they walked through the trees, Deon contemplated some of the things Ashley talked about while telling them her story. “Skrili,” he started. “What was all that about being in ‘teams’ and ‘touring,’ and stuff?”

Skrili stopped walking and her eyes narrowed. “Again, how did you even get out here if you have zero knowledge about the Multiverse?”

“Good question, I have no idea.”

Skrili took a deep sigh. “Well, the majority of traveling consciousnesses are part of the Consciousness League. It’s an inter-universe fighting league where consciousnesses pair up in teams of two. Ashley and Miranda are fulltime pros, which means they do this for a living. If they win a fight, their opponent pays them, but if they lose they have to pay their opponents. The teams usually decide what that price will be before the fight.”

“Whoa,” uttered Deon. This Multiverse thing was just getting better and better.

“Since Ashley and Miranda are broke,” continued Skrili, “their information on Pang and Phillip was their price. Every team needs to keep fighting regularly to stay in shape, so they sought out this opportunity even though they have no money or energy.”

“Hmm…this all sounds freaking awesome!” stated Deon. “So…does this make us a team?”

“What?”

“Yesterday you told me I could tag along with you,” Deon reminded her. “Doesn’t that kind of mean we became teammates?”

Skrili stared at him blankly for a moment, and he looked back at her with a smirk. “…No,” she said flatly.

“But—” Deon caught himself. “Well if we were, we’d be 2 and 0 right now.”

Skrili didn’t say anything more. A few seconds passed, and then she silently continued walking. Deon shrugged with a smile and followed her lead.